Don't want to say much about all of the politics because I have been reading this book by this guy who was the terroist coordinator for the last 3 presidents and I realized how little I really know, that all I have are opinions.

This morning I got this call from my brother. My cousin who we have been close to all our life had this son named Charles. He had attention deficit and they had their share of trials with that, but, Charles finally got it together, got all kind of awards for his writing ability and completed college, a very bright young man.

He joined the army, went to IRAQ. My brother just got the call from our cousin this morning that his son had been injured in a side road bomb while driving down the road in a hummer. He lost part of one leg. He is just a young guy, no older than 25, and already he will be handicapped for the rest of his life.

My first thoughts were 'f*** bush'. Not logical, I guess, but feelings never are.

Laura

Nightstalker

05-02-2004, 08:14 AM

You should be saying F&amp;$^ whoever caused Bush to send troops to Iraq. I know some do not believe that there was any reason to send troops but those people do not understand. I am sorry to hear about that, but be thankful that he is still living.

Sid_Vicious

05-02-2004, 08:24 AM

It is different for the elite class and the rest of us. Wars for America seems to be stocked without any citizens from the elite group, so it's easy for warmongers to monger. It ain't their blood, and THAT! makes all the difference in the world when a war is selectively started as this one was.

We don't hear much about the injured soldiers in Iraq, many, many sad and life altering stories we'll all find out about for a long time to come. I am real sorry that your family has to be included within this unecessary, political mess.

Sincerely,
Sid

bluewolf

05-02-2004, 08:34 AM

<blockquote><font class="small">Quote Nightstalker:</font><hr> You should be saying F&amp;$^ whoever caused Bush to send troops to Iraq. I know some do not believe that there was any reason to send troops but those people do not understand. I am sorry to hear about that, but be thankful that he is still living. <hr /></blockquote>

I think that most folks would think that he had to go after alquada after 9-11. It is some of the rest of it, that folks are in different camps about.

Laura

Sid_Vicious

05-02-2004, 10:52 AM

"...whoever caused Bush to send troops to Iraq."

This my friend is where the crux of the matter really resides. I personally believe that had Daddy Bush not been a failed predecessor in finishing Saddam off when he had the open chance, that The Shrub would not have maintained such a hard-on as far as going into Iraq. Plus then there's the oil, and The Shrub is certaily an oil man. Y'all can argue this BS about the US being forced into Iraq all you want, I'm closed minded about even the scant possibility of it being anything other than GW wanting to elevate himself with a war, correct Daddy's record, and all with the disguise of saving the Iraqi people from a terrible man. Well GW, there has been and still is, horrendous ethnic cleansing going on in West Africa and other places around the world, you seem to conveniently not talk about those active, killing machines and the innocent victims. Naaa, this war ain't about nuthin except money, agendas and politics. WMD, yea right! sid

Qtec

05-02-2004, 12:03 PM

Given the FACTS that there are NO WMD, that Saddam was NOT an 'imminent' threat to America and that there is no connection to Al Quaeda, who do you think "caused" GW to invade Iraq.
Please show your sources.

Q

eg8r

05-02-2004, 12:33 PM

[ QUOTE ]
Y'all can argue this BS about the US being forced into Iraq all you want, <font color="blue"> I'm closed minded </font color>about even the scant possibility of it being anything other than GW wanting to elevate himself with a war, correct Daddy's record, and all with the disguise of saving the Iraqi people from a terrible man. <hr /></blockquote> You need not say any more. This says enough about you.

eg8r

Qtec

05-02-2004, 12:38 PM

Talk about calling the kettle black!!!!!!!

I bet you had a smile on your face when you typed that. LOL

Q

cheesemouse

05-02-2004, 01:03 PM

Blue,

Sorry about your young cousin and I hope he gets on well and has ease adjusting to his injurys... /ccboard/images/graemlins/frown.gif

This my friend is where the crux of the matter really resides. I personally believe that had Daddy Bush not been a failed predecessor in finishing Saddam off when he had the open chance, that The Shrub would not have maintained such a hard-on as far as going into Iraq. Plus then there's the oil, and The Shrub is certaily an oil man. Y'all can argue this BS about the US being forced into Iraq all you want, I'm closed minded about even the scant possibility of it being anything other than GW wanting to elevate himself with a war, correct Daddy's record, and all with the disguise of saving the Iraqi people from a terrible man. Well GW, there has been and still is, horrendous ethnic cleansing going on in West Africa and other places around the world, you seem to conveniently not talk about those active, killing machines and the innocent victims. Naaa, this war ain't about nuthin except money, agendas and politics. WMD, yea right! sid <hr /></blockquote>

Sid,

I'm with you....getting after Bin Laden was OK....going into Iraq will prove to have been a very big mistake....the chicken hawks love it though.....chicken hawks are like pools 'rail birds', they talk a good game but they never get up and play....

bluewolf

05-02-2004, 01:33 PM

<blockquote><font class="small">Quote cheesemouse:</font><hr> Blue,

Sorry about your young cousin and I hope he gets on well and has ease adjusting to his injurys... /ccboard/images/graemlins/frown.gif <hr /></blockquote>

Thanks. I never believed in what is going on there anyway but now it is personal. I just talked to my sister in law on Rays side. She is so upset about what is going on that she says if Bush is reelected, she will move out of the country. I really do not blame her for feeling that way. /ccboard/images/graemlins/frown.gif

Laura

Nightstalker

05-02-2004, 02:25 PM

Misplaced blame is what that is. Bush did not set off the bomb that caused that injury.

Nightstalker

05-02-2004, 02:30 PM

<blockquote><font class="small">Quote Qtec:</font><hr> Given the FACTS that there are NO WMD...
<font color="red">If I chose to believe the mainstream media I might agree with you however, I am no sheep.</font color>
...that Saddam was NOT an 'imminent' threat to America and that there is no connection to Al Quaeda, who do you think "caused" GW to invade Iraq.
Please show your sources.
<font color="red">If I did, you would just claim they are not credible because CNN did not publish it so whatever. It is obvious you hate Bush so you will not accept anything that shows a positive aspect to his presidency. </font color>

Q <hr /></blockquote>

moblsv

05-02-2004, 10:05 PM

<blockquote><font class="small">Quote Nightstalker:</font><hr>Given the FACTS that there are NO WMD...
<font color="red">If I chose to believe the mainstream media I might agree with you however, I am no sheep.</font color>

What are you talking about? do you have some sort of wacko report showing WMD's? Maybe something that could cause one of the mushroom clouds Bush implied to the public. From where I sit I see you as the sheep. Do you totally ignore anything credible? Are your 'beliefs' more accurate than facts?

...that Saddam was NOT an 'imminent' threat to America and that there is no connection to Al Quaeda, who do you think "caused" GW to invade Iraq.
Please show your sources.
<font color="red">If I did, you would just claim they are not credible because CNN did not publish it so whatever. It is obvious you hate Bush so you will not accept anything that shows a positive aspect to his presidency. </font color>

Please, show them and give a reference or quit mindlessly flapping your gums.
<hr /></blockquote>

...I personally believe that had Daddy Bush not been a failed predecessor in finishing Saddam off when he had the open chance, that The Shrub would not have maintained such a hard-on as far as going into Iraq.... <hr /></blockquote>

I'm really getting tired of hearing this. If Bush Sr. had gone on to Baghdad in 1990 what makes you think that the stuff that's going on now would not have been going on then?

There would have deaths and injuries then too. And the Left would be screaming that we had no authority to take over Iraq, but merely to kick them out of Kuwait.

And another question I have never gotten an answer to is this, if we had gone into Afghanistan pre-emptively before 9/11 do you not think the same anti-war zealots would be crying and wetting their pants just like they are now?

And what if some of Saddam's nerve gas had made its way to the NYC subway? The Left would be saying "Dubya should have taken Saddam out, it's all his fault" , just like they're trying to pin 9/11 on him.

It's a no-win situation being the Prez.

eg8r

05-03-2004, 06:22 AM

To help him out a little bit here is a web page (http://www.insightmag.com/news/2004/05/11/World/Investigative.Reportsaddams.Wmd.Have.Been.Found-670120.shtml) about WMDs. They haven't found any stockpiles of the stuff, but there is still plenty of time to keep looking.
<blockquote><font class="small">Quote potion taken from link above:</font><hr> In taking apart Iraq's clandestine procurement network, Duelfer said his investigators had discovered that "the primary source of illicit financing for this system was oil smuggling conducted through government-to-government protocols negotiated with neighboring countries [and] from kickback payments made on contracts set up through the U.N. oil-for-food program" [see "Documents Prove U.N. Oil Corruption," April 27-May 10].

What the president's critics and the media widely have portrayed as the most dramatic failure of the U.S. case against Saddam has been the claimed failure to find "stockpiles" of chemical and biological weapons. But in a June 2003 Washington Post op-ed, former chief U.N. weapons inspector Rolf Ekeus called such criticism "a distortion and a trivialization of a major threat to international peace and security."

The October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate on Iraqi Weapons of Mass Destruction concluded that Saddam "probably has stocked at least 100 metric tons (MT) and possibly as much as 500 MT of CW [chemical warfare] agents - much of it added in the last year." That assessment was based, in part, on conclusions contained in the final report from U.N. weapons inspectors in 1999, which highlighted discrepancies in what the Iraqis reported to the United Nations and the amount of precursor chemicals U.N. arms inspectors could document Iraq had imported but for which it no longer could account. Until now, Bush's critics say, no stockpiles of CW agents made with those precursors have been found. The snap conclusion they draw is that the administration "lied" to the American people to create a pretext for invading Iraq.

But what are "stockpiles" of CW agents supposed to look like? Was anyone seriously expecting Saddam to have left behind freshly painted warehouses packed with chemical munitions, all neatly laid out in serried rows, with labels written in English? Or did they think that a captured Saddam would guide U.S. troops to smoking vats full of nerve gas in an abandoned factory? In fact, as recent evidence made public by a former operations officer for the Coalition Provisional Authority's (CPA's) intelligence unit in Iraq shows, some of those stockpiles have been found - not all at once, and not all in nice working order - but found all the same.

Douglas Hanson was a U.S. Army cavalry reconnaissance officer for 20 years, and a veteran of Gulf War I. He was an atomic demolitions munitions security officer and a nuclear, biological and chemical defense officer. As a civilian analyst in Iraq last summer, he worked for an operations intelligence unit of the CPA in Iraq, and later, with the newly formed Ministry of Science and Technology, which was responsible for finding new, nonlethal employment for Iraqi WMD scientists.

In an interview with Insight and in an article he wrote for the online magazine AmericanThinker.com, Hanson examines reports from U.S. combat units and public information confirming that many of Iraq's CW stockpiles have indeed been found. Until now, however, journalists have devoted scant attention to this evidence, in part because it contradicts the story line they have been putting forward since the U.S.-led inspections began after the war. <hr /></blockquote>

eg8r

bluewolf

05-03-2004, 06:49 AM

<blockquote><font class="small">Quote Nightstalker:</font><hr> Misplaced blame is what that is. Bush did not set off the bomb that caused that injury. <hr /></blockquote>

I said it was personal and an emotional reaction and not a logical one. It appears that either u cannot read or you are so propagandized that your clouded mind only takes in part of a message and does not digest the whole thing.

Laura

Nightstalker

05-03-2004, 07:49 AM

<blockquote><font class="small">Quote bluewolf:</font><hr> <blockquote><font class="small">Quote Nightstalker:</font><hr> Misplaced blame is what that is. Bush did not set off the bomb that caused that injury. <hr /></blockquote>

I said it was personal and an emotional reaction and not a logical one. It appears that either u cannot read or you are so propagandized that your clouded mind only takes in part of a message and does not digest the whole thing.

Laura <hr /></blockquote>
Knock it off, I was trying to point out something. There is no need to start an attack. I read the whole thing and my "clouded and propagandized" mind did actually understand it. Thanks.

Qtec

05-03-2004, 09:41 AM

The previous Bush man in Iraq.

http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/01/25/sprj.nirq.kay/index.html

Q

Wally_in_Cincy

05-03-2004, 10:11 AM

You crack me up. That article buttresses eg8r's point /ccboard/images/graemlins/smile.gif
================================================== ========
It was the consensus among the intelligence agencies that Iraq had such weapons that led Bush to conclude that it posed an imminent threat that justified the U.S.-led invasion, Kay said.

"I actually think the intelligence community owes the president rather than the president owing the American people," he said.

"We have to remember that this view of Iraq was held during the Clinton administration and didn't change in the Bush administration," Kay said.

"It is not a political 'gotcha' issue. It is a serious issue of 'How you can come to a conclusion that is not matched in the future?'"

Other countries' intelligence agencies shared the U.S. conclusion that Iraq had stockpiled such weapons, though most disagreed with the United States about how best to respond.

Powell: Violations justified war
Asked if Iraq posed an imminent threat to the United States at the time of the invasion, Kay said, "Based on the intelligence that existed, I think it was reasonable to reach the conclusion that Iraq posed an imminent threat."

Nightstalker

05-03-2004, 10:44 AM

Great post Wally. That pretty much says it all right there.

nAz

05-03-2004, 01:29 PM

Laura I'm sorry about your cousin?
hang in there.

Qtec

05-03-2004, 04:50 PM

your quote,

"You crack me up. That article buttresses eg8r's point
================================================== ========
It was the consensus among the intelligence agencies that Iraq had such weapons that led Bush to conclude that it posed an <font color="blue"> imminent threat</font color> that justified the U.S.-led invasion, Kay said. "

My post,

(CNN) -- Two days after resigning as the Bush administration's top weapons inspector in Iraq, David Kay said Sunday that his group found no evidence Iraq had stockpiled unconventional weapons before the U.S.-led invasion in March.

He said U.S. intelligence services owe President Bush an explanation for having concluded that Iraq had.

"My summary view, based on what I've seen, is we're very unlikely to find large stockpiles of weapons," he said on National Public Radio's "Weekend Edition." "I don't think they exist."

How do you reckon from this that there are WMDs in Iraq?

Secondly,

The Bush Administration is now saying it never told the public that Iraq was an "imminent" threat , and therefore it should be absolved for overstating the case for war and misleading the American people about Iraq's WMD. Just this week, White House spokesman Scott McClellan lashed out at critics saying "Some in the media have chosen to use the word 'imminent'. Those were not words we used." But a closer look at the record shows that McClellan himself and others did use the phrase "imminent threat" – while also using the synonymous phrases "mortal threat," "urgent threat," "immediate threat", "serious and mounting threat", "unique threat," and claiming that Iraq was actively seeking to "strike the United States with weapons of mass destruction" – all just months after Secretary of State Colin Powell admitted that Iraq was "contained" and "threatens not the United States." While Iraq was certainly a dangerous country, the Administration's efforts to claim it never hyped the threat in the lead-up to war is belied by its statements.

http://www.americanprogress.org/site/pp.asp?c=biJRJ8OVF&amp;b=24970

So where am I wrong?

Q
also, http://www.spinsanity.org/columns/20031103.html

Nightstalker

05-03-2004, 06:19 PM

Semantics

Wally_in_Cincy

05-04-2004, 05:47 AM

One last time.....

EVERYBODY IN THE FREAKING WORLD THOUGHT SADDAM HAD WMD.

HE HAD USED THEM.

HE SAID HE HAD THEM.

WHO IN THEIR RIGHT MIND WOULD THINK HE DID NOT HAVE THEM?

Wally~~thinks Q is not in his right mind due to his mysterious hatred of Bush

Qtec

05-04-2004, 07:11 AM

OK. Lets clear this up once and for all.

EVERYBODY IN THE FREAKING WORLD THOUGHT SADDAM HAD WMD. <font color="blue"> When you say WMD you mean chemical weapons,right? Even your own Govt conceces that Saddam did not have nuclear capability. </font color>

HE HAD USED THEM. <font color="blue"> Chemical weapons? Yes he did, but we have know that since the Iran-Iraq war, some 20 years ago!!!. So what was the big rush? </font color>

HE SAID HE HAD THEM. <font color="blue"> Do you believe everything Saddam says or is it that CHOOSE to believe because it supports your argement? </font color>

WHO IN THEIR RIGHT MIND WOULD THINK HE DID NOT HAVE THEM?

<font color="blue"> The UN maybe! .</font color>

Q [ Glad thats sorted out /ccboard/images/graemlins/grin.gif]

Wally_in_Cincy

05-04-2004, 07:14 AM

I give up

Nightstalker

05-04-2004, 07:19 AM

Q, if you have read anything at all about the UN lately then you should understand that they are not the beacon of truth and honor that you hope they would be. Haha, they are as corrupt as the olympic comittee. Try again. /ccboard/images/graemlins/grin.gif

Qtec

05-04-2004, 07:21 AM

I didnt say they werent.

Q

Nightstalker

05-04-2004, 07:37 AM

<blockquote><font class="small">Quote Qtec:</font><hr> WHO IN THEIR RIGHT MIND WOULD THINK HE DID NOT HAVE THEM?

<font color="blue"> The UN maybe! .</font color>

Q [ Glad thats sorted out /ccboard/images/graemlins/grin.gif]

<hr /></blockquote>
So you put no trust in the UN but you side with them because they said there were no WMD right? Hahaha.